Experiments in Living » Caribbean

Karma Chameleon

admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:16 +0000

Previous Chapter: It’s not what you know, you know.

After finally getting my certificate translated, that left only the Carte de Séjour. I summoned up the energy to have another crack at it. It is a very draining process, and one has to be psyched up for it. I arrived outside at 6.30am and camped out on the steps until the office opened at 7, reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. By the time I got to the desk, it transpired that they had the whole dossier on me, and just needed at transfer of my file from Haute-Savoie. I left my number with the woman. I know things will speed up now, since Mme Lutin knows someone who works at the Sous-Préfecture.

A couple of days later (after speaking to Mme Lutin), I went to the Aliens Office for the last time. They handed me the document I needed. It was so easy. I still have it to this very day, and if I ever move back to France, will be able to go through the whole process again. Fun!

To say I was ecstatic about getting my resident permit would be taking it a little too far. However, I was feeling the sweet victory at having taken on French bureaucracy, and finally having my efforts pay off. I had taken on the system and won. Actually what I really did, with this and the translation, was what French people do: I used the Système D, which means that eventually you emerge victorious either by sheer dent of willpower or knowing the right person. In France, and especially a small place like Guadeloupe, it’s a people thing.

I had a class after that, so I took the bus up to Baimbridge, wearing my triumph like a crown. I got off on the corner by the mango trees, and there was Leila staggering towards me.

“Oh Kate, I’m so pleased to see you!” she breathed. Pleased to see me? Who’d have thought it? She did look rather desperate to tell the truth. She seemed dizzy and her left arm was cut and bleeding.

“I had a car accident…” she trailed off. The traffic lights were changing so she had stopped and the person behind ran straight into the back of her.

I took her into school so she could get some first aid and get out of the heat. Then it suddenly occurred to me that there was no sign of any car.

“Where’s the car?”

Apparently the police had towed it away as it was blocking the intersection. Since Leila was babbling away incoherently, and I was still feeling like I could take on the world, I called the car hire company and did five rounds with them. As it turned out, the car had been delivered back to them and they had been charged by the police for the use of the camion-grue which had brought it back. They wanted to pass this charge on to Leila, but I managed to talk them out of this, pointing out that she had taken out collision damage waiver, and that they would be insured. I really laid it on thick about how poorly Leila was feeling and how far away from her family she was.

“Do you have children monsieur? Would you not like to think that people would be compassionate to them in the same situation?”

They let her off the charge. That’s the Système D for you. I don’t know why I bothered, after all I owed Leila less than nothing, I guess I was still high after taking on the system and winning once that day, I thought I’d have another go. Besides a deposit in the bank of Good Karma never goes amiss, a lesson the Leilas of this world would do well to learn.

Party Time!

admin — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:53 +0000

Based on extracts from The Guadeloupe Diaries, 2000-2001

Previous chapter

It was the third week into my stay in Gwada, when one Saturday night, Marie went out to some party or other and I stayed at home experimenting making myself a little treat of curried green bananas. I was quite surprised when Marie came back before ten.

“Kate, you’re never going to believe who’s there! Leila and the English assistants. You’ve got to come, I want to see the look on her face when you arrive!” I could not resist. I got myself glammed up and off we sped to Prise d’Eau.

Leila made little secret of her irritation that I was there, trying every trick in the book to exclude me from conversation. At one point she actually turned her back on me and practically waved a fan right in my face to obscure my view of the group.

“So Leila, how’s life in Gosier?” I inquired with forced conviviality. “Oh it’s absolutely fabulous!” she gushed. “Jenny and I are sharing a room. We’re like sisters!” Jenny, I noted, smiled weakly, but remained silent. A silence which said more than words ever could.

“Pete not with you tonight?” Stating the obvious, I knew, but I would have bet a million that there had been some kind of bust-up. I was right. “No, he’s decided to stay in his little boarding house.“ Leila barely concealed a scowl. This was obviously a sore point. She changed the subject. “Have you met the other assistant? The one with all the piercings?” “Who’s that?” “Amy or something. You’ll know her when you see her,” Leila added with a superior smile which I wanted to swat like a fly.

It reminded me of a comment M had made about J several years earlier. “You’ll know him when you see him.” “So what’s he studying, this J? Music?” M paused and a grin spread across his face like an infectious disease. “He’s doing French.”

M, being one of the few people who could read me like an open book, saw the split second my mask slipped, “You’ve already met him, haven’t you?” The cute guy with the ripped jeans. I’d just assumed he was one of the returning fourth year students. It had rankled that he knew me so well. How did he know I‘d fall for J? Was it just speculation? Or, and by this point I was becoming truly paranoid, had he set the whole thing up for his sick amusement? God, here I was three thousand miles away and M had managed to worm his way into my thoughts. Urgh! I’d come all this way to escape the past four years, only to find that I had more time to obsess about everything than ever.

I had never loved M. Obsessed by him, lusted after him, of course, but love wasn’t really part of the equation. I will admit that I was quite crazy over the guy in the worst possible way. He was my Achilles heel, a drug I couldn’t get enough of. Years later, he would enter my dreams at night, and I’d then spend the following day thinking about him at inopportune moments. He had become merged into my psyche in a twisted kind of way, like the devil on my shoulder.

By the time I had got to Guadeloupe, M was ancient history as far as I was concerned, but I was rapidly discovering that when you’re alone with your thoughts, time and distance make no difference to the ghosts in your heart. I could close my shutters against the glare of the street lights and the usual cacophony of sounds which punctuated the dark hours. But they could not protect me against my own dreams.

Scene: the stairs in the Main Arts building. “I wouldn’t say I regret taking the Sartre module,” J was verbally doodling.

“Well don’t regret it then. Never regret anything. You go crazy that way.” I didn’t just mean Sartre. I needed to take some of my own advice. There seemed to be so many stairs, we went faster and faster, down and down. It’s not the fall that will kill you, it’s the landing.

Scene: The Crescent, after closing time. Here I am wearing a pair of black, faded too-tight Levi’s and a tie-dye top I’d bought in Dublin. But somehow I am outside myself, looking on. I notice that J and I both have really bad posture. “See you Kate,” he said. I swear I can hear M laughing in the background. I woke up. When I said goodbye to J I thought I would never see him again. After that dream I didn’t believe that any more. There was a weird feeling I had, of unfinished business. I needed what people I don’t like very much call “closure”. The hum of the fan in the corner of my room lulled me back to sleep. Strangely, I felt peaceful knowing I would see J again. What would be would be.

“She’s at the Lycée Classique,” Leila continued her character assassination of the unfortunate Amy, but I wasn’t really listening. She was boring me, to be honest. Luckily, someone appeared with more drinks and I took the opportunity to attempt to make conversation with the insipid Jenny (a totally unrewarding experience) while Leila went to find the poor gimp she’d suckered into giving her a lift.

I was rescued when they all went off to a club somewhere. I wasn’t invited, but that was just fine by me. I spent the rest of the evening drinking and smoking way too much. Ho-hum.

A phone call from Leila

admin — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:00:52 +0000

Based on extracts from The Guadeloupe Diaries, 2000-2001

Previous Chapter

Sundays in Grand-Camp were quiet. A lot of people went to church, and, since the shops all shut on Saturday lunchtime until Monday morning, it made for quite an eerie feeling. Most of all, though, Sundays were for family.

On one such Sunday, I was introduced to the Beaujolais extended family. They lived in the village of Prise d’Eau over on Basse-Terre. Guadeloupe is essentially two islands which fit together to form a butterfly shape. The western side, Basse-Terre, is quite hilly and has the active Soufrière volcano in the middle. It rains a lot there, and much of the island is covered in rainforest. The heat and humidity make it ideal for cultivating bananas. The main town, confusingly, is also called Basse Terre. The side of the island on which I stayed, Grande-Terre is much flatter and drier. Traditionally, this part of the island has been used to cultivate sugar cane.

In a bitter twist of irony, however, the French no longer require so much sugar from the Antilles since sugar beet is commonly grown in the Métropole. Guadeloupe is officially part of the European Union, as is Martinique, which means that due to protectionism, it is more expensive for them to trade with their Caribbean neighbours than with Europe. Since it is due to colonialism that the islanders are reliant on these crops in the first place, it could be argued that Europeans have a moral obligation to continue buying these goods.

Our assistant contracts started on the first Monday in October. I went up to the school again, and this time they were able to sort out practically all my paperwork. I met some of the teachers and students, and then went home again. Nothing happens at lightening pace in Guadeloupe, I was beginning to realise

I had just woken up from my little siesta when the phone rang. It was Leila. Within a few seconds, I understood that this was not a social call.

“You were right after all,” she breathed. So she was learning. “Can I move in tonight?”

Now, it wasn’t my flat, so I couldn’t just say yes. I am not proud of myself for taking pleasure in this, but it felt satisfying to inform her of the following:

“Well, I don’t know now. We’ve had a call from someone else looking for a room.” This was true. More will be revealed to you, dear reader.

“French or English?”

“Well, American, actually.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not certain. I’ll have to ask Madame Beaujolais.”

I did just that. Marie waved her hand dismissively.

“Tell her to call back on Wednesday.”

I suggested to Leila that she call Madame Fleurival, silently adding “Like you should have done before you got here!”

“I’ll be homeless!” she wailed.

“Don’t worry, they’ll find you something,” I said brightly. “I have to go now, Leila. Good luck with the house hunting!”

Marie then called Leila’s school. The secretary said that the line was busy. It was Leila. They put her on hold to speak to Marie, who passed on the message that she would have to wait until Wednesday. It just goes to show that you should be careful not to alienate people as you never know when you might need their help. In case you are thinking that I left Leila to wander the streets, the assistants did find a house together after all, like I knew they would. Not that she bothered to call me to tell me, I found this out a few days later via about ten other people.

I’d mentioned to Leila that we’d had an American interested in the other room. I didn’t just make that up to be mean. It was a guy named Mike, and on Thursday evening, Marie and myself went to pick him up from the airport. We speculated on whether he would be a tanned, muscled Californian. Were we ever disappointed!